AliceX: First Mac Game Returns to the iPhone

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/04/20/alicex-first-mac-game-returns-to-the-iphone/)

Last week, Steve Capps released an iPhone game to the App Store called AliceX [App Store (http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=310605029&mt=8)]. This $1.99 game, however, carries significance for long time Mac users as AliceX is based on the very first Mac game: Alice: Through the Looking Glass.


http://images.macrumors.com/article/2009/04/20/060432-alice_book_2-1.jpg.jpeg

Original Mac packaging (Folklore.org (http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Alice.txt))

Folklore.org has documented (http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Alice.txt) the story behind Through the Looking Glass which started as a Lisa game."You've got to see the new game that Steve Capps wrote", he told me while he was connecting his hard drive up to my Lisa. He booted up into the Lisa Monitor development system, which featured a character-based UI similar to UCSD Pascal, and launched a program named "Alice". Steve Capps was the second member of the Lisa printing team, who started at Apple in September 1981. I had seen him around but not really met him yet.The game was even featured in the Steve Jobs Mac announcement (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0FtgZNOD44) (2min 40sec) back in January, 1984. The iPhone version of the game contains the "classic" Alice pieces as well as "hip hop" and "bush memorial" pieces. Instructions, video and a simple javascript version of the iPhone adaptation of the game is available (http://onedoto.com/iPhone/Alice/index.php).


http://images.macrumors.com/article/2009/04/20/061217-605029.jpg.jpeg

Steve Capps is perhaps most well known for his part in programming the Finder for the original Macintosh and subsequent work on the Newton OS. Capps has since founded a user interface design company called onedoto (http://onedoto.com).

App Store Link: AliceX, $1.99 (http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=310605029&mt=8)

Article Link: AliceX: First Mac Game Returns to the iPhone (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/04/20/alicex-first-mac-game-returns-to-the-iphone/)

[colourclassic]

What can I say? ******* EPIC!

Okay calm down there!

I still play alice on my 512K Macintosh every now and then. It really is addictive. I wonder how the control scheme works.

[iCantwait]

kids these days wont understand...
oh, wait, either do I:D

[arn]

the original Mac packaging of the game was apparently commanding $100 on eBay a year ago.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=460272

arn

[dual64bit]

I remember watching eBay for Alice. I'm pretty excited about the iPhone version, I'll have to download it after work :)

[grapemac]

as a side note, the music at http://www.onedoto.com/alice is great

[DELLsFan]

... I think she'll know ... :cool:

Nothing like a little nostalgia to fire up the masses.

[Shadow]

Just a note: this is NOT compatible with the first gen iPod touches. I already bought it (using iTunes store credit) before realizing this.

[blizaine]

I'm holding out for an iPhone version of Battle Chess.

[arn]

I'm holding out for an iPhone version of Battle Chess.

well, no battle chess yet, but...

http://toucharcade.com/2009/01/27/classic-game-of-archon-coming-to-iphone/

Archon is coming.

[Digitalclips]

What can I say? ******* EPIC!

Okay calm down there!

I still play alice on my 512K Macintosh every now and then. It really is addictive. I wonder how the control scheme works.

This is great news but the name "AliceX" cracks me up. They will sell tons to those thinking it's from the makers of Debbie does Dallas! :o

[twoodcc]

nice. i might have to try this out

[JayMan8081]

Always good to see the classics brought to today's hardware.

[TheSlush]

Glad to know the "old-timers" are still active, just like the ol' days. Now I want to see Woz come out with an iPhone app that will jam television signals.

[jnc]

Just a note: this is NOT compatible with the first gen iPod touches. I already bought it (using iTunes store credit) before realizing this.

Can't you get a refund? Unless you glazed over some disclaimer, or something..

[lukecro]

Just a note: this is NOT compatible with the first gen iPod touches. I already bought it (using iTunes store credit) before realizing this.

I wonder why it doesn't work with 1st-gen iPod Touches -- what's the touch missing that has a negative impact on this sort of app?

[nagromme]

Nice to see AliceX live on... but Archon interests me more :) I'm curious to see the Bush graphics though--definite humor potential there.

[jnc]

I wonder why it doesn't work with 1st-gen iPod Touches -- what's the touch missing that has a negative impact on this sort of app?

There are some internal spec processing differences between the iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPod touch and iPod touch 2g that may account for the problem.

[pimentoLoaf]

What can I say? ******* EPIC!

Downloaded, installed, and ... FUN!

Had the opportunity to play this years ago on other people's Macs and ... yeah! This game rocks! :cool:

[Linx]

I would like to see Myst on the iPhone. For me that was my first Mac gaming experience.

[BRLawyer]

What can I say? ******* EPIC!

Okay calm down there!

I still play alice on my 512K Macintosh every now and then. It really is addictive. I wonder how the control scheme works.

Now tell me calmly:

Why the hell would someone vote "negative" for this news?

[Moonlight]

I have my money saved for a iPhone version of Transylvania !!!!!! :)

[tufaw]

Why the hell would someone vote "negative" for this news?Perhaps because they only have first generation iPod touches.

[Morod]

Well it looks like they did at least give them stupid/sinister grimaces.

Hah! Love it! Now I just need to get an iPhone or iPod Touch.....

[bedifferent]

I would like to see Myst on the iPhone. For me that was my first Mac gaming experience.

Oooo Myst, I loved that game. God, I can't believe it's been over 15 years!

[SaraT]

I think he had to name it AliceX because Apple said Alice was taken (don't know why, anyone know of any Apple products named Alice?). That's what it says on the Fake Steve Capps blog

[SteveCapps]

Thanks for these positive (and negative) comments about Alice. It was a blast to write and it's even more fun to see people get nostalgic about it. The Mac world was so simple back in 1984 and it's a nice little reminder of those times.

It's also great to see the GW theme get trashed -- you don't have to play with that theme, you know, there are 3 others.

Follow Alice and other iPhone developments on twitter (under @stevecapps).

[Golem]

Dang, reading this made me wonder where my copy of Alice actually is. The mac SE I last played it on is still working , but 2000k across the countryside, but i havent seen the physical game since at least one house move ago:(

[arn]

Thanks for these positive (and negative) comments about Alice. It was a blast to write and it's even more fun to see people get nostalgic about it. The Mac world was so simple back in 1984 and it's a nice little reminder of those times.


Hey Steve,

Great to see you comment. Good luck with the App. Hopefully it'll get more recognition considering the history behind it.

(and, it looks like the political comments were modded out, we try to keep those out of the news threads as they are hard to keep under control.)

arn

[blakespot]

Thanks for these positive (and negative) comments about Alice. It was a blast to write and it's even more fun to see people get nostalgic about it. The Mac world was so simple back in 1984 and it's a nice little reminder of those times.

It's also great to see the GW theme get trashed -- you don't have to play with that theme, you know, there are 3 others.

Follow Alice and other iPhone developments on twitter (under @stevecapps).

Good to see you in the forums, Steve. We're big fans of the app over at Touch Arcade.

http://toucharcade.com/2009/04/16/alicex-the-macs-first-game-comes-to-the-iphone/



blakespot

[Norco]

I bet 90% of the people that come across that app are gonna be like, the looking glass? What the hell is that? Don't they mean wonderland?

[Clavel]

Alice doesn't play chess until the book Through the Looking Glass. I have a copy of the original Alice but now can't find my Mac 128K so now I have this! Thanks Steve

[doc1042]

Capps usually does Easter eggs - has anyone found one?

[uaecasher]

Is there a version for MAC OS X :P?

[BRLawyer]

Thanks for these positive (and negative) comments about Alice. It was a blast to write and it's even more fun to see people get nostalgic about it. The Mac world was so simple back in 1984 and it's a nice little reminder of those times.

It's also great to see the GW theme get trashed -- you don't have to play with that theme, you know, there are 3 others.

Follow Alice and other iPhone developments on twitter (under @stevecapps).

Thanks for the effort, Steve...and thanks for the great original work done to the Finder and Mac apps in general...good and simpler times indeed! (I still remember using my Apple //e clone and longing for a Mac back in the late 80s...) ;)

p.s.: yep, where are the Easter eggs? ;)

[KosherKid]

When I saw this I could hardly wait to get home to buy it! :)
Alice and the melting clock were awesome. I have seen some other melting clocks since then, but even with much fancier Macs than my 128, no of them are as smooth and pretty as that one.
My one disappointment with Alice for the iPhone, unless I just haven't found them yet, are some of the other options. E.g. upside-down board and mirror clicking (click left to move right). Also there was an option where the holes were permanent, so the board eventually disappeared.
(I also seem to have a hard time getting it to respond to my finger taps, so that by the time Alice finally moves it's too late, and you can't tap ahead. :( )

(I was hoping the eyes/ears/nose/smile would do something, but I haven't had any luck there either.)

[doc1042]

If you click on the score, then the Cheshire Cat comes up and click on his eyes and the levels change (left goes down, right goes up). I think that's right. Anyone else check?

Anyone remember Capps' SoundEdit for the Mac? When you clicked on the About box, the alert with the bomb would come up (the Mac guys called it the Deep **** Alert). That was scary and cute.

[KosherKid]

I thought I noticed that the chessboard sometimes changed in the background when touching his eyes, but wasn't consistent. I didn't notice the level number changing :o.

[SteveCapps]

The chessboard slightly changes because the player you play as changes every 4 levels. When you first play as a knight, for example, the possible moves for a knight are highlighted; these are the visual changes you may have noticed as you went through levels.

[Shadow]

Can't you get a refund? Unless you glazed over some disclaimer, or something..

I hear that you can't get refunds from the iTunes store, and besides, its not really worth the effort for such a small amount of money. Just means I'll have to wait until I get an iPhone later this year to play ;).

@SteveCapps: It's great to see you on these boards. I've throughly enjoyed reading about you and the rest of the original Mac team over at Folklore.org (http://www.folklore.org/).

[KosherKid]

The chessboard slightly changes because the player you play as changes every 4 levels. When you first play as a knight, for example, the possible moves for a knight are highlighted; these are the visual changes you may have noticed as you went through levels.

Thanks. I knew that is what I had been noticing once I found out that the levels were changing with eye touches.

[SteveCapps]

When I saw this I could hardly wait to get home to buy it! :)
Alice and the melting clock were awesome. I have seen some other melting clocks since then, but even with much fancier Macs than my 128, no of them are as smooth and pretty as that one.
My one disappointment with Alice for the iPhone, unless I just haven't found them yet, are some of the other options. E.g. upside-down board and mirror clicking (click left to move right). Also there was an option where the holes were permanent, so the board eventually disappeared.
(I also seem to have a hard time getting it to respond to my finger taps, so that by the time Alice finally moves it's too late, and you can't tap ahead. :( )

(I was hoping the eyes/ears/nose/smile would do something, but I haven't had any luck there either.)

You certainly can tap ahead or otherwise the game was unplayable. I'm curious why you don't feel you can. One of the purposeful difficulties with the game is if you click to an illegal move square and then click ahead after that assuming the first square was good, you will often end up stalled and capture will ensue.

As for the sensitivity, I actually go to great pains to make the clicks do something. When I first coded it, I did the strict bounds testing on the squares but quickly realized I had to respond with the closest square because the taps are notoriously inaccurate. Then, I added a small amount of cheating which biases the clicks towards squares that capture opponents. So, at lower levels <24, you can miss the square by almost almost one whole square and it'll still take the best move. (At higher levels it's less forgiving) The easiest way to see this is to capture all but one piece, get captured, hope you revive on a square that can attack the last piece, and then click on various squares near the piece.

That said, there's always room for one more bug, so if you've got a reproducible case, let me know and I'll rev the app if I can figure something out. I sometimes felt like it missed a click but every time I instrumented it, it turned out I was clicking on an illegal move as mentioned above.

Finally, as for the missing modes in the original Alice: I reviewed them and concluded they were throw aways and didn't really add that much... Except for the trap door which I put in all the time. I changed it slightly in that the trap door will jump locations only on your click so if will sometimes deviously move just when you jump for it. The Mac game's trap door jumped around at random and only rarely did it disappear at just the wrong moment.

As for easter eggs in general, I posted a little musing about this WRT version 1 vs. version 2 on my blog yesterday (http://fakestevecapps.blogspot.com/2009/04/top-round-ii.html).

[SteveCapps]

... the melting clock were awesome...

My friend Scott Warren released a Dali-inspired clock today. While searching for it, I discovered another friend (from Apple long ago), Burt Sloane also wrote one. Search for "Dali" in iTunes and both should pop up.

I mused about this (http://fakestevecapps.blogspot.com/2009/04/dali-dali-in-come-free.html) because it was a complete surprise to discover there's a lot of Dali-ness out there. I think this is one of the few things written for the Alto in the 70s that has made the 30 year jump to iPhone. (well...except for all that GUI stuff, ethernet, laser printers, and the other hundred things invented at PARC)

[geokost]

Thanks for these positive (and negative) comments about Alice. It was a blast to write and it's even more fun to see people get nostalgic about it. The Mac world was so simple back in 1984 and it's a nice little reminder of those times.

It's also great to see the GW theme get trashed -- you don't have to play with that theme, you know, there are 3 others.

Follow Alice and other iPhone developments on twitter (under @stevecapps).

I have to say this is just down right cool Steve.